To the brave women who have made it through every hurdle thrown at them, did you have a role model? Do you cling to inspiration? Is it based on a person? Mine is, and I am thankful.

I know a woman who has lived through unimaginable things. She grew up in rural Mexico from birth through mid teens when she married an amazingly handsome fellow. She was over the moon.

Shortly after they got married, her dream came true, she was pregnant and would welcome a baby girl the fall of 1961. By then, the dream had started to become a foggy daze, which eventually became a nightmare.

During the summer of 1962 she gave birth to another baby girl, two boys followed. She worked hard and provided for her four kids. Where did the handsome fellow go? Well, he was a men’s man. He was delightful and charming, until he came home that is. At home, he became a monster. That strong, brave woman was beaten, almost killed even, her kids were mistreated and most nights she hoped he’d stay at whatever woman’s house he happened to be entertaining that week. She kept going. Never giving him a second thought, until he came “home”.

Her kids grew up, married, moved, and she continued to do what she had always known, be brave. She worked as a housekeeper in a neighboring US border town; she also ran a small business from home, and kept going. Eventually, the handsome fellow fell ill. Her kids tried to get her to put him in a home, as he needed specialized care but she didn’t. She is stubborn. She learned the cares he required and continued to tend to him. She said she had chosen that life and she would finish it.

Day by day the handsome fellow grew weaker. She bathed him, fed him, read to him, groomed him, until he passed away some ten years after his illness set in.

She continued to be brave.

She is now 78, and my grandmother. My grandmother who discovered the misery of my marriage and she reminded me to be brave. When I reminded her of her loyalty to my grandfather, she reminded me that she had been brave for my mother, and now I needed to be. To be Brave in a way she couldn’t be. Brave enough to leave and brave enough to make a better, happier life for me. She wants me to be brave, and because of her, I am.
I am brave for I am her granddaughter. She was brave enough to raise my mother to not let herself be abused or mistreated. Brave enough to teach my mother how to raise me into the self-sufficient, independent, smart woman who I have become. I am brave because she taught me how to be.

Today, August 21, 2017, we were able to experience a total solar eclipse. First time in 500 years – at least in my region- although I recall seeing one when I was just a child in another part of the world. Yes, today I was able to experience true beauty, beauty unlike any I recall ever witnessing (at least as an adult). It was nature’s Kahlo and Bartoli happening before my eyes. It was a perfect blend of magic, love, and lust. The sun and the moon, touching each other… the way forbidden love does when it has the chance.

Today’s mesmerizing event made me think, can one survive without one’s true “sun”, when you are the moon? How do long distance relationships last? How do lovers in two different lives make it past such a long lonely period without feeling each other’s physical presence? How does the moon exist without the sun? How do you survive until your next “total” eclipse?

“I will wait for you all my life, Bartoli, all that I have left of life is yours, even if I do not see you……Don’t forget me. Don’t leave me alone.” ~ Kahlo to Bartoli 1947

I am tired of the nastiness that immigrants experience due to your lack of human decency.

I’m so sick of the ‘no tax’ thought… People don’t come here undocumented and immediately get covered with a golden vail that says ‘you don’t have to pay taxes’. If she works, she’s paying taxes; if she drives, shes paying taxes; if she shops, she pays taxes….

I remember being asked more than once how it felt to not pay taxes… How I felt being ‘illegal’ (without first, of course, knowing whether I was undocumented or not).

No one ever asks us, those of us who came here as kids (whether via visas or not), if we wanted to come here; if we wanted to uproot our lives and dreams to come here to be looked at as a second class human being. I didn’t. I was 13 years old and blissfully unaware that I would soon call the US home. I lived a pretty comfortable life in Mexico. I attended private school, my mother never had to work, my father worked 2 weeks per month, and I was happy. I was pretty privileged in my home country (not to say that I don’t also get to enjoy some privileges here). Do you honestly think I wanted to come here? To enter into a culture I had no clue about? We moved here because my parents thought we’d have better opportunities. Did we? Perhaps some, but they certainly came at a very high cost- financially, emotionally, and certainly mentally.

When we first moved here, we lived with family members while we saved money… This was devastating to a newly teen girl who had always had space, privacy, and never had to share anything (huge, rude awakening). Then I watched my father, a man who had always been respected in a company he had worked in for 20 years, work two jobs; one which he was a dishwasher at a local southern restaurant. Can you believe my heartache? My daddy. A man I had looked at as a hero for so long, being another ‘mexican’ in the kitchen… Yeah, I certainly got knocked down a few notches. Still think I wanted to come here? My mother? She began to work at a local factory, my mother, who had never worked, was always there for my homework, dinner, to pick me up from school and take me to dance recitals, was suddenly gone.

In the meantime, my first day of school in Houston, I witnessed the most horrific fight I’ve seen to date, and it was on a school bus. I got off the bus, covered in blood from a classmate’s face… I didn’t want to return to school. Thankfully I made it. In high school, yet in another city, I was one of a handful of Hispanic students and did everything I could to learn to communicate well, quickly. All while being a curiosity and being asked how hard it was to cross the border. I didnt really understand the question, as we had driven over the bridge in my aunts truck. Now I know what they meant.

22 years later, although I feel foolish for complaining about what in reality was a pretty easy transition, I still sometimes wish my now divorced parents would have opted to stay home. I wonder what my life would have been like as I see friends who are doctors and lawyers and architects… They didn’t come here. Here where we aren’t wanted, where because of my lack of English knowledge at the time, I didn’t immediately attend college. I had no idea that college was even an option. I was the daughter of a single, Hispanic mother who had too much on her plate, it was certainly easier to move-in with a boyfriend (who I eventually married and remain married to, 17 years now). That same husband told me the other day that I was ‘crazy’, that people didn’t see me as I saw myself… He was wrong, of course, and after reading comments in an article much like this one, he apologized. He realized then, that when people look at me, they-and you know to whom I refer- think of me as lesser; as a burden on their economy, without even knowing that I probably know more about this beautiful country and it’s history, than they do, that I have worked legally since I was 16, that I have tried my hardest to fit in, in a place in which recently I’ve been feeling more like an outsider than I have my whole time here, in a place where right now it doesn’t matter how well I speak, or understand. I am unwanted! And that, breaks my heart, not for my privileged self who does speak the language, who isn’t afraid to speak up; but it breaks my heart for those who can’t, For those who came here without being asked, for those who like my parents thought they were making the best decisions for their families. That’s who I’m heart broken for, and cry.

So CharmDay is one of my favorites, and that was today, November 15th!

BoxyCharm this month contained the following:

So far, I’ve tried a few of the items such as:

The eyeshadow from winkylux, which although the colors look great, didn’t seem to blend too well. The colors were not as vibrant as I’d like them to be, and just all around meh.

The Luxiebrushes didn’t disappoint, which I’m not surprised, they are probably my favorite brush people.

The Laqa&co lipstick color is great. Reminds me of mulberries in the summer, so it’s a great shade to sport during the dark, cold months. Doesn’t have the stay power of others but, is also not shiny or glossy, which is a plus. It also doesn’t dry your lips, but as previously stated, I’d keep it handy for touch-ups.

I had been dying to try the Cover Fx setting spray, and I have to say it doesn’t disappoint. It is now 1:04 pm and I applied my make up roughly 6 hours ago and it remains dewy and intact.

All in all not a bad month for boxy goodies. Would I pay the $31 for the palette? No. But everything else seems worth the price.

I’m already excited for next month, I hear some great things (such as mascara!!!) are coming.

I subscribe monthly to four or five different make-up, beauty, and fragrance subscriptions. Today I decided to start writing about my likes and dislikes, and give a first hand review of these goodies.

This month, I am awaiting Ipsy, Birchbox, and Boxycharm. They are all set to arrive this week, and I couldn’t be more excited! Mostly because I spend on average about $80 a month on goodies and get so much in return . Next month I will be receiving my first Scentbird, which is free! Right now and for the next day or so, you get one month free, and if for some reason they don’t accept your payment method (as I use a pre-paid card for all my subscriptions), you get $5.00 off to use a different card, so I will be getting two months of perfume for only $9.99! Is that great or what?

Relationships of all sorts are a give and take. There comes a point when you must give yourself completely and trust blindly. Ones inability to do so keeps said relationship from ever fully achieving its potential.

Today I am frustrated and I’d like to Express how someone’s distrust slowly makes me retract; slowly rebuild any walls I had let down to let them in. Seems I rebuild faster than I fear the wall down, and yesterday I build a few rows up. I too am insecure in myself, but why is it that I have to believe what someone tells me are their true feelings and they can’t seem to believe what I express to be my heartfelt all. Perhaps my opinions, thoughts and feelings are not really something they care enough to believe in. Perhaps I am right to build back up. I do hope however, that they become aware of what they eventually bring to themselves by pushing me away.

Today is my birthday. I woke up thinking for some reason that it was a special day. I learned rather quickly that it was only special to me, because apparently my choices and mistakes over the past year have deemed me unworthy. Unworthy of a call I have come to expect over the past 15 and some years…that call from my mother and a call from my sister. This year, I got neither.

I had an all around ok birthday. The girls from work were nice enough to get me my favorite pastries, and a gift card. I got a card from my best friend, and a surprising text from my father. That was all. My kid didn’t make a point of telling me happy birthday, and other than my gma (whose bday is tomorrow), only social media bday wishes. You know, the obligatory ones. It is now 9:14pm and I’m headed to bed, half way in tears… yeah I’m a bratty brat brat. Idk why I expect for my bday to be anything other than August 24 of whatever year.

I guess perhaps because every year, on their birthday – for those special to me, I try to make them feel that. This year, I helped throw my mother a once in a lifetime party. But I guess my mistakes and life, make me unworthy of any acknowledgment. Yeah. Poor, pitiful me. I know. I’m just whining. I also know I’m not the only one who’s bday has been forgotten. Or who isn’t good enough.

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